Friday, August 3, 2012

Watching the Ecuadorian Press on Assange

(Google English translation here - note that President Correa has been in a long-running battle with Ecuador's right-wing media, whom he calls "information mafias").

Palleres picks up on a fairly innocent comment from Christine Assange's recent RT.cominterview:

"The Foreign Minister invited me to tell him what I knew".

According to Pallares, this is a "revelation" proving that Mrs Assange came to Ecuador at the Foreign Minister's invitation, which "dispels any doubt about the real motivations of the Assange case."

"Since she arrived," says Pallares, "the presence of Christine Assange in Ecuador has been completely in tune with the communication strategy of the government, which does everything it can to erase any possible doubt about the abuses of media outside the official propaganda machine."

He claims the government of President Rafael Correa is exploiting Assange's decision to seek asylum as a way to bolster their image as beacons of press freedom.

"Mrs Assange has gone from one news bulletin to another, hand in hand with the Foreign Ministry's staff, to repeat as many times as possible that her son is trying to save his life by not allowing himself to be arrested by the great hegemonic power, the United States."

I am sure Christine Assange would be surprised to hear that she is being used as a tool of government propaganda. And I'm sure the translators and security staff who accompany her will be surprised to know that putting words in her mouth is part of their job descriptions.

Pallares closes his column by lamenting that "the granting of political asylum is subordinate to media strategy and government propaganda".

A glance at his profile reveals that Martin Pallares, El Commercio's current Online News Editor, previously spent five years as Political Editor. His regular columns present an endless torrent of criticism aimed at the government, which he claims is using WikiLeaks as a "battle-horse in its obsessive war against the non-state press." Oh, and he's a Knight Fellow from Stanford University, USA.

It seems to me that Pallares is the one putting his own "propaganda", and El Comercio's "media strategy", ahead of Julian Assange's very serious request for political asylum. And I get the impression that President Correa's clamp-down on the media cannot be too extreme, if people like Martin Pallares are still free to publish.

r

evelation made by the
mother of controversial founder of Wikileaks came at the invitation of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador dispels any doubt that may
have occurred that are the real motivations behind the case Assange.

revelation made by the
mother of controversial founder of Wikileaks came at the invitation of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador dispels any doubt that may
have occurred that are the real motivations behind the case Assange.

revelation made by the
mother of controversial founder of Wikileaks came at the invitation of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador dispels any doubt that may
have occurred that are the real motivations behind the case Assange.

revelation made by the
mother of controversial founder of Wikileaks came at the invitation of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador dispels any doubt that may
have occurred that are the real motivations behind the case Assange.

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